


I've tasted blood (and it is sweet)

by reysrose



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Alicia Clark, Canon Divergence, Capture, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Injury Recovery, Queer Althea, Season 5 AU, Torture, Whump, s5ep04
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-05-28 15:18:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reysrose/pseuds/reysrose
Summary: Alicia finds Al all on her own, badly injuring herself in the process. Al is near death, the people who took her may have left but they're definitely coming back, and their only salvation may be in Virginia.The question is: Will they make it there without losing someone?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first FTWD fic, but I write for The Raven Cycle (Pynch mostly) and the 100 (Niytavia mostly) so check those out. I'm Rxnanlynchxs on tumblr.

It’s her fault. If she hadn’t gone to the crash site alone in the middle of the night, if she hadn’t gotten taken, none of this would have happened. Alicia wouldn’t be clutching at her hip in agony, slumped against a tree. Al wouldn’t be too weak to get her home, half dead from exposure and dehydrated from desperate overexertion. 

They wouldn’t be completely and totally fucked. 

“Stay awake,” Alicia grunts, from where she’s holding Al’s shredded button up to the bullet wound. Al rolls her head to the side, gripping at Alicia’s shirt. It’s stained with blood and other nasty shit, but Al doesn’t care, just clings. 

“M awake,” she slurs. Her head throbs behind her eyes and she wants to shut them, but instead she brings the walkie back up to her dry mouth and presses the button. 

“June?”

June’s voice is static and hope on the other end of the channel, soft but faded. 

“We’re on our way, sweetie. Just hold on.”

Al coughs, eyes fluttering. Alicia reaches over and digs her nails into her arm, hard. She swats half heartedly, curling in towards Alicia’s warmth. She’s so cold. Alicia rests a hand on her back and Al shivers against the touch, sagging a bit more in her exhaustion. 

“Drink.” 

There’s the rim of a water bottle against her lip. Al turns away from it. The last water Alicia had given her she’d just thrown back up, and it’s a waste to drink anymore. 

“Come on, Al,” Alicia snaps, voice weaker than it had been. Al takes a few swallows of water and lays her head back down. She’s still so thirsty, and she runs a trembling finger over the cut on her forehead. Alicia tugs at her hand until she stops poking at it, adjusting their tangled pile of bodies until Al’s head is resting on her thigh. 

“You gotta stay awake until June gets here, okay?”

Al coughs. Her lungs hurt, and something salty and thick fills her mouth. Mucus. She swallows it. Alicia is playing with her hair, smoothing thin fingers over her undercut. She’s going to pass out. Her vision is blurred and she closes her eyes. 

“I know you don’t feel well, Al. Just stay awake.” 

She can’t. She whines in panic, trying to force her eyes back open but they’re sealed shut. 

“You’re safe, Al. Come on, you’re okay, please stay with me-“

It’s too hard, her body giving up after days of adrenaline. Alicia’s hand cups her cheek, thumb stroking the fragile bruised skin beneath Al’s closed eye. 

“They’re coming for us. You’ll be okay.” 

There’s a weight on her chest like a boulder. Alicia sounds scared instead of reassuring and Al blindly reaches for her, letting Alicia grab her hand out of midair. Al squeezes as hard as she can, which isn’t hard. She can’t remember the last time she ate. Thinking about food makes her want to puke again. Oh, that’s because she’s going to puke again. 

“Get it out. That’s it- cough a few times, okay?” 

She coughs. She can’t stay awake any longer. 

“June? How much longer?” 

Al passes out before she hears the answer. 

~  
Her hip burns, her leg mostly numb. The bullet is probably pressing on a nerve or something, but she can at least still wiggle her toes. Slumped in her lap, Al moans in her sleep, fever heat seeping through Alicia’s jeans. June’s 10 minutes out, but it’s getting darker and colder and Al is sicker than she was when they were all poisoned. A wheezing cough bursts from Al’s mouth and then she’s choking on mucus. Alicia tilts her head to the side and reaches into Al’s mouth, swiping her airway clean. 

She’s dizzy from the blood loss, and nauseous from shock. Having Al’s puke on her jeans isn’t helping. She’s starting to run out of adrenaline to keep herself conscious, but one of them has to be awake. Alicia rolls her head back against the bark of the tree and grits her teeth. Black fuzzes the edges of her vision and she blinks, hard. Tires. She can hear tires screeching and she reaches for her gun barrel, disturbing Al. Al’s eyes blink open but they’re unseeing, rolled back in the sockets. Alicia takes her hand away from the bullet wound in her hip and uses it to soothe Al back into unconsciousness, laying her head on the ground before dragging herself to standing. The bark of the tree scrapes her back through her shirt. She grimaces. Al has a coughing fit on the dirt. 

“Alicia! Alicia!” 

She whirls but it’s too fast, and she collapses onto her hands and knees in the dirt. Al is still coughing, but as Alicia raises her head she sees June fall down next to her hastily and get her in recovery position. Victor’s hand rests on her back. 

“Al,” she croaks out, “she’s sick, she’s-” Her elbows buckle but there’s Strand, lifting her into his arms. 

“Easy. You’re bleeding, Alicia.”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, letting Strand place her in the backseat of a car she doesn’t recognize. Al is slumped in the middle, June on the other side. Alicia lets her head roll back against the seat.

“Awake, Alicia.” 

She whines, tired and aching and-oh, oh christ oh fuck oh jesus-

“It’s alright. Deep breaths, deep breaths.” 

“The bullet is still in there,” June says, reaching around Al to palpate the aching spot on Alicia’s front. 

“Leg is numb,” she mumbles, tugging at Al’s hand to hold it. She found her. She found her. 

Al’s eyes open for the briefest of seconds, her fingers twitching between Alicia’s.

“Wiggle your toes.”

She wiggles, letting her head tumble down against Al’s shoulder. Al coughs in an aching, thick way that makes Alicia’s chest hurt in sympathy. It all hurts. Everything. Al’s eyes open again, meeting hers. Al is crying, tears running down her cheeks silently, and Alicia doesn’t think she knows she’s doing it. 

“Shush,” Alicia slurs, one shaky hand going to brush tears off Al’s cheeks and smearing blood on them instead. Oops. 

“I can’t” Al wheezes, their heads sliding together until they’re cheek to cheek, “can’t breathe.” 

“I know, sweetie. You’re okay.” 

“No,” Al gasps, gripping at Alicia in panic, “I can’t-  
I can’t-“ 

It’s different this time, Alicia registers as she holds Al’s wheezing body against hers with clumsy, tired arms. She’s not coughing, and her heart is racing a thousand beats per minute. Alicia makes a loose fist over Al’s heart. 

“S’a panic attack,” she mumbles against Al’s sticky hot cheek. Al whimpers, still gasping. 

“She’s right. Just-start driving, we need to get them both somewhere safe-Al, honey, I want you to breathe with me. Ready? In for three-”

Al sobs, drawing in a wheezing, stuttering three count breath, and Alicia clings to her a little tighter for a few seconds before her muscles go limp. Her eyelids flutter, Al’s pale, strained face blurring in her vision as she cries for air. She needs to be there for her. She has to be there for Al, Al who she found curled in a ball of tangled limbs at the top of the cliff face, who nearly died about three times as they ran from the psychos who kidnapped her. 

“You...you..”

“Keep breathing with me, Al. Althea, I need you to stay awake.”

Ooooh, full name, Alicia’s brain supplies as her vision clouds with sparkling black. 

The last thing she hears as she finally, finally passes out in the backseat against Al’s heaving body is Al letting out a strangled sob that ends in a thick, wet cough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This took longer than I wanted it to but I am in england doing some pretty serious research (transcription and Tudor documents alongside some stuff about female hysteria and gothic lit) so the writing has been slow. I’ve got about a week and a half left, but once I get home I have a prospectus to write as well and then the semester starts! Updates will probably be pretty sporadic for the foreseeable future

Waking up sucks, Al decides. 

The first thing that happens after her eyes open is them slamming shut again as light splits her skull in half. She tries not to make a sound but fails, a strangled whimper that turns into a wet cough. 

“Al!” 

Charlie is hovering over her, carefully turning her head to the side. Al keeps coughing, her chest aching and her ribs separating as her mouth fills with mucus that she spits into a tissue Charlie presses to her lips. She groans, rolling her head back to look up at Charlie’s face. Her head, that’s in Charlie’s lap in a moving vehicle she doesn’t recognize. She feels like shit. 

“Hi,” Charlie whispers, small fingers carding through Al’s sticky hair, “do you want some water?”

She does, but first she wants to put the fractured memory of getting into a car with a bleeding Alicia (fuck) together with what’s currently happening and what little she can remember before ending up in a car with a bleeding Alicia. She wants to ask the question but all that comes out is “Licia?” 

“She’s okay,” Charlie says, still playing with Al’s hair, “she’s sleeping. She lost a lot of blood but June got her patched up.” 

Al nods, exhausted from the single question. Her body is heavy, hot and cold and sore, and her skin hurts. She’s sick. She remembers being taken, her head hurting, getting sick in some sort of cell. The cough starting. She doesn’t like it. Her stomach rolls. Nausea. She’s definitely got a fever. She wants to be with Alicia, curled together on their cot in the factory, little spoon. She wants to be the little spoon. Her stomach pitches again. 

“Al? Are you going to throw up?” 

She can’t even nod. If she nods she will puke and if she pukes her head will hurt worse and the cough will come back and- 

She’s dry heaving into a bucket before she can even have a coherent thought. Her head splits again, concussion pain and fever pain altogether. She cries out hoarsely when bile finally comes up and then slumps forward, fighting to stay conscious. Charlie is still there, but so is June, taking her pulse. Al tries to speak but her chest hurts too much and she just wheezes. 

“Just try to breathe, Al. I’m going to put something in your mouth. When I say to, take a deep breath in.” 

It’s an inhaler, Al’s fuzzy brain recognizes tiredly. June tells her to breathe and she does, flinching against the powdery taste of albuterol on her tongue. It helps quickly, and she lays still with June’s hand rubbing her back until her lungs open enough to stop gasping. 

“Fuck,” she breathes, pressing into June’s touch like a cat for the comfort. Alicia, her brain screams. Sleep, her body cries. 

“Yeah,” Charlie agrees. Al struggles to sit up but it takes a gentle hand against her chest to stop her and get her laying back down. Her chest heaves and she feels like she just ran a marathon.

“How bad is it, doc,” she croaks out, taking a sip of water when it’s offered to her. She can’t see Alicia. 

“Pneumonia,” June says shortly, wetting a cloth and wiping the slick of sweat off of Al’s forehead. More water. Still no Alicia. She’s starting to panic a little. 

“Where’s Alicia?” 

“She’s resting, Al.”

“No, I gotta-” she struggles to sitting, pressing a hand to her head when it lifts off Charlie’s leg and things start to shift sideways. June presses a hand to Al’s chest but she tries to swing her legs off the bench and yelps when her knees buckle. 

“Easy. Hey, come on. Take it easy.”

“Alicia,” Al gets out, letting June get her back onto the seat, but she refuses to lay down, leaning against the seat back with labored breathing. It hurts, her whole body, but especially her head and lungs. It’s too much within seconds and she slumps down. Her head throbs behind her eyes and then she’s coughing again, harsh and brutal to the point of gagging into the bucket again. 

“Al, take a deep breath.” 

“I fucking can’t,” she gasps, because she can’t. Someone is standing on her chest, and she still cannot fucking find Alicia-

“Al?” 

“Baby..” Al wheezes, darkness on the edges of her vision. Alicia is standing but curled in on herself, clutching at a swatch of bandages over her injury. Al chokes a little as Alicia cups her face, suddenly on her knees in front of Al’s seat. They aren’t moving anymore. 

“Shhhh, shhhh, I’m right here,” Alicia whispers, stroking the skin over Al’s cheekbone, “you need to calm down, okay? I’m safe, we’re safe. June, can we move her to the floor?” 

June nods in the edges of Al’s vision, and then she’s being levered upwards, legs numb, and June is carefully easing her down onto a blanket. There are seats missing, and Al rolls her eyes upward and around. They’re in the van, her van. The van with no seats beside benches. How did she not recognize her own van? God she feels so shitty. 

“Why aren’t,” she breaks off to cough again, spitting into a tissue and taking a few sips of water, “aren’t we back at the truck stop?”

June bites her lip. 

“It’s gone.” 

She can’t think through that sentence, even though it’s only two words. Mostly she just wants to be sick again. 

“Oh, Al.” 

Oops. Her skin is aching again and her head splits. June places a thermometer under her tongue after she rinses and spits into the bucket she’s been puking in. 

“That’s too high,” Alicia snaps, cupping Al’s forehead. Al moans, trying to lift it to see the number on the screen. She wants the wet cloth from earlier back. Someone takes her blanket and her jacket off.

“M’freezing,” Al slurs, trying to curl up in Alicia’s lap. 

“You’re burning up, love,” Alicia whispers, adjusting Al’s writhing and uncomfortable body so her head is on her chest instead of her thigh. It’s easier to breathe like that, Al has to admit. She rests her head against Alicia’s collarbone, fists clenching and unclenching as she fights to stay conscious. 

“That fever needs to come down,” June says, pressing her hand to Al’s cheek. Al is getting really tired of people touching her sweaty, sticky face. 

“Fuck off,” she mumbles, squeezing her eyes shut. Someone puts pills in her mouth and then adds water- she spits them out. 

“Nope. Get ‘em down. Come on, Al, don’t be difficult.”

Difficult is her middle name, Al thinks, but she swallows what she’s given and then promptly blacks out. 

~

Al’s consciousness is a fractured, tenuous thing at best. Alicia presses a wet washcloth to her cheek, frowning. 

“She needs antibiotics.” 

“She can barely keep water down,” Alicia says, not taking her focus off Al. 

“I know,” June sighs, “we need the denim factory. We have the supplies for this there but-“ June cuts herself off with a growl of frustration, smacking her hand against the wall of the van. Al is startled from her sleep with a cough and then it’s the same all over again. 

Al coughs until she gags, then keeps coughing until she throws up. Her lips turn blue until June can get her to take the inhaler, and Alicia rubs her back until she can breathe again. They give her water. Al throws the water back up, burning with a fever so hot she can barely speak. Alicia is terrified, gripping at the straps of Al’s tank top as she coughs and spits. 

“You’re okay,” she coos, catching Al’s boneless torso in her arms. Al blinks up at her, hazy eyes barely focusing on her face. 

“You found me,” Al murmurs. Alicia presses a water bottle to her lips. 

“I did. You’re safe now.” 

“Mhm,” Al slurs, a bit of water dribbling out of her slack mouth. Alicia wipes it away with her sleeve. 

“Sweetie, can you take some medicine for me?” 

Al shakes her head pitifully, pushing her hot cheek against Alicia’s shoulder. June sighs, reaching out and stroking Al’s messy hair. 

“Please, Al. We need to get your fever down.” 

It’s not like the Tylenol ever stays in Al’s system long enough to do much anyways, Alicia thinks, but she soothes Al as June gets the medicine in her and then carefully cradles her until she loses consciousness again. Alicia’s eyes are full of tears. 

“How’s your hip,” June asks, straightening up. 

“Hurts,” she says quietly, unwilling to even risk disturbing Al. Maybe if she stays asleep the Tylenol will stay down. Maybe. Alicia hopes. 

“I need to look at it.”

“When Al wakes up next,” Alicia says, carefully tracing patterns on Al’s ribs as her chest heaves up and down. Even in sleep she struggles to breathe, panting tiredly, breath hot against Alicia’s neck. 

June frowns, going for the thermometer. Al doesn’t stir, just sleeps soundly as it beeps and reads 104.2. 

“Fuck,” Alicia snarls, and then she’s sobbing, clutching Al to her chest. Al is like a rag doll, limp and pliant. She’d lost weight in captivity and it was still coming off, her ribs sharp against Alicia’s torso. June rubs her back as she cries, stroking Al’s hair over and over. 

Al’s eyes flutter open and she grins, just for a second. 

And that’s when the seizure starts


End file.
